TABERNAC

Data visualization in R has officially gone too far.

Stephan Malina does a great book review on the work of polymath ​​scientist / inventor / psychologist Elmer R. Gates, one of the great scientists history pretty much forgot. Among other things, he talks about a “scientifically determined method of mentating”, genetic memory, and developing precise control of the body… if this guy wasn’t a huge influence on Frank Herbert’s Dune, we would be very surprised.

Remember stumbleupon? 

Interesting review on twitter of nutritional wisdom. Basically: your body knows what you need and directs you to eat things that give you those things. This makes sense to us, how else did people stay alive 10,000 years ago? 

Good news in PFAS remediation. You probably know that these terrible compounds are in your blood, where they bind to serum proteins; turns out you can get rid of them just by donating blood (h/t Lars Doucet). This makes perfect sense — the PFAS are bound to the blood, you get rid of the blood, you get rid of some PFAS, and your bones make fresh blood with no PFAS. Wait, did bloodletting maybe work? Like if you had a ton of lead in your body or something, would this get it out? There used to be lead in everything, we imagine if you swallowed some, came down with sweats and a fever, went to a doctor and they let your blood go, it might help with the lead poisoning. Compare also with “dilution of harmful factors in old blood” as a life extension technique. We might look into all of this a bit more when we get a chance.

Politics, Ho Ho Ho. No seriously, Santa Claus is running for US House Representative for Alaska. And we want to take a moment to say, he has the official Slime Mold Time Mold endorsement.

Rat On! is an album by R&B anti-hero Swamp Dogg. You must hear the reviews. Here’s one from ‘Denzel’: “This man has the greatest album covers of all time. Whether riding a giant rat or posing as some kind of hot-dog/man hybrid; Swamp Dogg never disappoints the senses whether audio, visual or otherwise.” Swamp Dogg do you want to collab?

“According to Waters, the hole had an unknown depth of at least 80,000 feet. He claimed to have measured its depth using fishing line and a weight, although he still had not hit bottom by the time 80,000 feet of line had been used. He also claimed that his neighbor’s dead dog had been seen alive sometime after it was thrown into the hole. According to Waters, the hole’s magical properties prompted US federal agents to seize the land and fund his relocation to Australia.”

Magnetic slime might be the next big thing in medicine. The twitter comments are about what you would expect. 

We haven’t seen much of new show “Winning Time”, but Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s review on Substack is worth reading for being a whole new level of articulate and cutting. Why didn’t anyone tell us he’s one of the greatest living writers? 

I Caught Covid And All I Got Was This Lousy Ambiguous Data

A Chinese math teacher is “one of Pornhub’s biggest stars” — for his calculus lectures. He keeps his clothes on. You might think this means you can create something unusual and special on any platform. No. You can only create something unusual and special on PornHub.

Where in Pi is Waldo? Not in the first billion digits, apparently. Or maybe he is, depending on how much you cheat.

Atoms vs Bits asks, who made the best predictions? Their candidate: Charles Darwin

”A mysterious leaden sarcophagus discovered in the bowels of Paris’ Notre-Dame cathedral after it was devastated by a fire will soon be opened and its secrets revealed.” DON’T OPEN IT 

Advertising firm Ogilvy will no longer work with influencers who edit their bodies or faces for ads. Very cyberpunk.

The Average Fourth Grader Is a Better Poet Than You (and Me Too). “Here are some lines written by students in grades 3rd-6th: … [Writing about a family member’s recent death:] ‘My brother went down / to the river and put dirt on.’” Related: 

Dynomight shares an interesting first-person account of being recruited to (probably) a cult.

The Guardian reports: The big idea: should we get rid of the scientific paper? YES

If you are facing a werewolf and want to cast your own silver bullets, it’s very hard but probably not impossible. (h/t Lars Doucet)

How do you defend your livestock from coyotes? Well obviously your farm just needs the coyote’s most terrible natural enemy (content warning: coyote slaughter):

On the use of StackOverflow and Cunningham’s Law.

Aella comes out as Wikipedia nerd. We always suspected.